What are we
to make of Obama�s speech at Cairo University in Egypt?
�I�ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United
States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual
respect.�[Text]
Cairo is
the capital of Egypt, an American puppet state whose ruler suppresses the aspirations
of Egyptian Muslims and cooperates with Israel in the blockade of Gaza.
In contrast
to the Islamic University of Al-Azhar, Cairo University was founded as a civil
university. Obama�s Cairo university audience was secular.
Nevertheless,
Obama said startling words that many Muslims found hopeful. He said that
colonialism and the Cold War had denied rights and opportunities to Muslims and
resulted in Muslim countries being treated as proxies without regard to their
own aspirations. The resulting blowback from �violent extremists� bred fear and
mistrust between the Western and Muslim worlds.
Obama spoke
of the Quran, his middle name, and his family connections to Islam.
Obama
praised Islam�s contributions to civilization.
Obama
declared his �responsibility as
president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam
wherever they appear.�
Obama
acknowledged �the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.�
Obama
acknowledged Iran�s �right to access peaceful nuclear power.�
Obama
declared that �no system of government
can or should be imposed by one nation on any other.�
Obama�s
most explosive words pertained to Israel and Palestine: �Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel�s right to exist cannot be
denied, neither can Palestine�s. The United States does not accept the
legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.�
Obama
declared that �the only resolution [to
the conflict] is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two
states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security. That
is in Israel�s interest, Palestine�s interest, America�s interest, and the
world�s interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with
all the patience that the task requires.� For Obama�s commitment to be
fulfilled, Israel would have to give back the stolen West Bank lands, dismantle
the wall, accept the right to return, and release 1.5 million Palestinians from
the Gaza Ghetto. As this seems an unlikely collection of events, the nature of
the �two- state solution� endorsed
by Obama remains to be seen.
After the
euphoric attention to idealistic rhetoric dies down, Obama will be criticized
for extravagant words that create unrealizable expectations. But were the
extravagant words other than a premier act of schmoozing Muslims designed to
quiet the Muslim Brotherhood in our Egyptian puppet state and to get Muslims to
accept US aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Obama
decries regime change, but continues to practice it, invoking women�s rights to
gain support from secularized Arabs. He admits that Iraq was a war of choice
but claims that al Qaeda, the Taliban, and 9/11 make Afghanistan a war of
necessity.
Obama said
that �the events of 9/11� and al
Qaeda�s responsibility, not America�s desire for military bases and hegemony,
are the reasons America�s commitment to combating violent extremism in
Afghanistan will not weaken. Will Muslims notice that Obama�s case for America�s
violent extremism in Afghanistan and now Pakistan is hypocritical?
Al Qaeda,
Obama says, �chose to ruthlessly murder�
nearly 3,000 people on 9/11 �and even now states their determination to kill on
a massive scale.� These deaths are a mere drop in the buckets of blood that
America�s invasions have brought to the Muslim world. Moreover, the
overwhelming majority of the Muslims America has slaughtered are civilians,
just as are the unarmed Palestinians slaughtered by the American-equipped
Israeli military.
Against al
Qaeda, whose �actions are
irreconcilable with the rights of human beings,� Obama invokes the Koran�s
prohibition against killing an innocent. Does Obama not realize that the
stricture applies to the US and its �coalition
of forty-six countries� in spades?
America�s
wars are all wars of choice. The more than one million dead Iraqis are not al
Qaeda. Neither are Iraqi�s 4 million refugees. Yet, Obama says Iraqis are
better off now, with their country in ruins and a fifth of their population
lost, because they are rid of Saddam Hussein, a secular ruler.
No one has
a good tally of the dead and refugees America has produced in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, declared Obama, �The
situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America�s goals and our need to work
together.�
In his
first 100 days, Obama managed to create 2 million Pakistani refugees. It took
Israel 60 years to create 3.5 million Palestinian refugees.
What Obama
has really done in his speech is to accept responsibility for the
neoconservative agenda of extending Western hegemony by eliminating �Muslim extremists,� that is, Muslims
who want to rule themselves in keeping with Islam, not in keeping with some
secularized, Westernized faux Islam.
Muslim
extremists are the creation of decades of Western colonization and
secularization that has created an elite, which is Muslim in name only, to rule
over religious people and to suppress Islamic mores. All experts know this, and
most of them hail it as bringing progress and development to the Muslim world.
Obama said
that �human progress cannot be denied,�
but �there need not be contradiction
between development and tradition.� However, the West defines
development and education. These terms mean what they mean in the West. Muslim
extremists understand that these terms mean the extermination of Islam.
In typical
American fashion, Obama offered Muslims money, �technological development,� and �centers of scientific excellence.�
All the
Muslims have to do is to cooperate with America and be peaceful, and America
will �respect the dignity of all human
beings.�
Paul
Craig Roberts [email
him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President
Reagan�s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has
held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair,
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University,
and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was
awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author
of Supply-Side
Revolution : An Insider�s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation
and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown:
Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M.
Stratton of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for
Peter Brimelow�s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent
epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.